MISERICORDIA DEI on certain aspects of the celebration of the Sacrament
of Penance

Cardinal Ratzinger noted that the Motu Proprio is a response to the
improper use in some countries of general absolution to replace the
personal confession of sins. General absolution is designed for
emergency situations where penitents must also have the intention of
making their confession afterward as soon as possible for the liceity of
the general absolution. In recent years the extraordinary method of
general absolution has been used as the normal method. This has the bad
effect of bringing about an impersonalization of the guilt of personal
sin and of the personal nature of forgiveness, in which God personally
forgives the sinner and raises him/her to divine life. In his Apostolic
Letter, the Holy Father underlines the personal character of confession
and absolution, of our sins and of their forgiveness that the sacrament
promotes in a special way more than other sacraments. In the Apostolic
Letter, the Holy Father also teaches that the Church does not have the
power to replace with general absolution the personal confession, that
Christ required for the act of judgment that the priest's activity of
binding or loosing entails. Here is a translation of Cardinal
Ratzinger's presentation of the summary of the teaching of the Church.

The fact that humanity needs purification and forgiveness is
something that is most evident at this historical moment. For this very
reason the Holy Father in his Apostolic Letter NovoMillennio
ineunte placed among the priorities of the mission of the Church for
the new millennium "a renewed pastoral courage in proposing in an
attractive and effective way the practice of the Sacrament of
Reconciliation" (n. 37).

Personalist nature of Christian life

The new Motu Proprio Misericordia Dei is linked to this
invitation and makes theologically, pastorally, and juridically concrete
a few important aspects of the practice of this sacrament. Above all,
the Motu Proprio emphasizes the personalist nature of the
Sacrament of Penance: as the sin, despite all our bonds with the human
community, is ultimately something totally personal, so also our healing
with forgiveness has to be something that is totally personal. God does
not treat us as part of a collectivity. He knows each one by name, he
calls him/her personally and saves him if he has fallen into sin. Even
if in all the sacraments, the Lord addresses the person as an
individual, the personalist nature of the Christian life is manifested
in a particularly clear way in the Sacrament of Penance. That means that
the personal confession and the forgiveness directed to this person are
constitutive parts of the sacrament. Collective absolution is an
extraordinary form that is possible only in strictly determined cases of
necessity; it also supposes, as something that belongs to the nature of
the sacrament, the will to make the personal confession of sins, as soon
as it will be possible to do so. The strongly personalist nature of the
Sacrament of Penance was overshadowed in the last decade by the ever
more frequent recourse to general absolution which was increasingly
considered as a normal form of the Sacrament of Penance, an abuse that
contributed to the gradual disappearance of this sacrament in some parts
of the Church.

Trent understands that the power to forgive sins given to the
Apostles and their successors requires a judgement

If the Pope now reduces again the extent of this possibility, the
objection might be made: but has not the Sacrament of Penance undergone
many transformations in history, why not this one? In this regard one
needs to say that, in reality, the form manifests notable variations,
but the personalist component was always essential.

The Church had and has the consciousness that only God can forgive
sins (cf. Mk 2,7). For that reason she had to learn to discern carefully
and almost with reverent awe what powers the Lord transmitted to her and
which he did not. After a long journey of historical maturation, the
Council of Trent expounded in an organic form the ecclesial doctrine on
the Sacrament of Penance (DS 1667-1693; 1701-1715).

The Fathers of the Council of Trent understood the words of the Risen
One to his disciples in Jn 20,22f as the specific words of the
institution of the sacrament: "Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins
you shall forgive they are forgiven them, whose sins you shall retain,
they are retained" (DS 1670; 1703; 1710). Starting with Jn 20 they
interpreted Mt 16,19 and 18,18 and understood the power of the keys of
the Church as the power for the remission of sins (DS 1692-1 1710). They
were fully conscious of the problems of the interpretation of these
texts and established their interpretation in terms of the Sacrament of
Penance with the help of "the understanding of the Church"
that is expressed in the universal consensus of the Fathers (1670; 1679;
1683; important for this 1703). The decisive point in these words of
institution lies in the fact that the Lord entrusts to the disciples the
choice between loosing and binding, retaining or forgiving: the
disciples are not simply a neutral instrument of divine forgiveness, but
rather a power of discernment is entrusted to them and with it a duty of
discernment for individual cases. The Fathers saw in this the judicial
nature of the sacrament. Two aspects belong essentially to the Sacrament
of Penance: on the one hand the sacramental aspect, namely the mandate
of the Lord, that goes beyond the real power of the disciples and of the
community of disciples of the Church; on the other hand, the commission
to make the decision that must be founded objectively and, therefore,
must be just and in this sense has a judicial nature.
"Jurisdiction" belongs to the sacrament and it requires a
juridical order in the Church, that is always directed to the essence of
the sacrament, to the saving will of God (1686f). Trent is clearly
differing from the position of the Reformers, in which the Sacrament of
Penance signifies only the manifestation of a forgiveness already
granted through faith, and so does not do anything new, but only
announces what always already exists in faith.

The judicial nature of the Sacrament implies the necessity to confess
each mortal sin

This juridical-sacramental character of the sacrament has two
important implications: if this is the reality, we must speak of a
sacrament that is different from Baptism, of a specific sacrament, that
supposes a special sacramental power, that is linked with the Sacrament
of Orders (1684). If however, there is also a judicial evaluation, then
it is clear that the judge has to know the facts of the case on which he
is to judge. The necessity of the personal confession with the telling
of the sins, for which one must ask pardon of God and of the Church
because they have broken the unity of love with God that is given by
baptism, is implicit in the juridical aspect. At this point the Council
can say that it is necessary iuredivino (by divine law)
to confess each and every mortal sin (can. 7, 1707). So the Council
teaches that the duty of confession was instituted by the Lord himself
and is constitutive of the sacrament, and so not left to the disposition
of the Church.

Church does not have the power to replace personal confession with
general absolution

Therefore it is not in the power of the Church to replace personal
confession with general absolution: the Pope reminds us of this in the
new Motu Proprio, thatexpresses theChurch's
consciousness of the limits of her power; it expresses the bond with the
word of the Lord that is binding even on the Pope. Only in situations of
necessity, in which the human being's final salvation is at stake, can
the absolution be anticipated and the confession left for a time in
which it will be possible to make it. This is the true meaning of what
in a rather obscure way is meant by the word collective absolution, Now
it is also the mission of the Church to define when one is in the
presence of such a situation of necessity. After, as we said,
experiencing in the last decades expansive, and for many reasons
unsustainable, interpretations of the conceptof necessity, in
this document the Pope gives precise determinations that must be applied
in their particulars by the Bishops.

Confession offers experience of liberation by God from the past
weight of sins

Does this document place a new burden on the backs of Christians? It
is precisely the contrary: the totally personal character of Christian
life is defended. Of course, the confession of one's own sin can seem to
be something heavy for the person, because it humbles his pride and
confronts him with his poverty. It is this that we need: we suffer
exactly for this reason: we shut ourselves up in our delirium of
guiltlessness and for this reason we are closed to others and to any
comparison with them. In psychotherapeutic treatments a person is made
to bear the burden of profound and often dangerous revelations of his
inner self. In the Sacrament of Penance, the simple confession of one's
guilt is presented with confidence in God's merciful goodness. It is
important to do this without failing into scruples, with the spirit of
trust proper to the children of God. In this way confession can become
an experience of deliverance, in which the weight of the past is removed
from us and we can feel rejuvenated by the merit of the grace of God who
each time gives back the youthfulness of the heart.

Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
8 May 2002, page 5

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